Timo Houben
Research Data Management
Department of Monitoring and Exploration Technologies
Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ
Permoserstraße 15, 04318 Leipzig, Germany
Contact
Phone: +49 341 60 25 2303
Building 7.1, Office 211
Research interests
- AI, Data Science and High Performance Computing
- Machine Learning for Environmental Applications
- ML for Automated Quality Control
- Xplainability of Neural Networks
- Spectral Analysis of Environmental Signals
- Numerical and Analytical Modelling
- Groundwater Travel Time Analysis
Short CV
from March 2024
April 2023 - March 2024
AI Researcher at Helmholtz-AI Project RESEAD
July 2021 - March 2023
Researcher and Groundwater Modeller at the UFZ Project LandTrans Simulator, Group Groundwater (LandGH20)
Researcher and Groundwater Modeller at the collaborative research center Aqua Diva, Projects Fluxes and Element Flows, B04: Modeling of water and biogeochemical dynamics
August 2017 - June 2020
Ph.D. Student in Groundwater Modeling, Computational Hydrosystems, Supervision: Sabine Attinger, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ, Leipzig, Germany
April 2013 - Feb. 2016
Master of Science - Applied Geosciences
Engineering Geology, Hydrogeology and Geophysics
RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
Bachelor of Science - Applied Geosciences
RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
Publications
2024 (2)
- Lasota, E.K., Houben, T., Polz, J., Schmidt, L., Glawion, L., Schäfer, D., Bumberger, J., Chwala, C. (2024):
Interpretable quality control of sparsely distributed environmental sensor networks using graph neural networks
EarthArXiv 10.31223/X5WT3W - Siebert, C., Rödiger, T., Houben, T., diDato, M., Fischer, T., Attinger, S., Kalbacher, T. (2024):
A recipe to generate sustainably maintainable and extensible hydrogeological datasets to prepare large-scale groundwater models for multiple aquifer systems
Comput. Geosci. 10.1007/s10596-024-10315-9
2023 (3)
- Houben, T., Di-Dato, M., Siebert, C., Kalbacher, T., Fischer, T., Attinger, S. (2023):
Spectral analysis of groundwater level time series reveals hydrogeological parameters
EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 24–28 Apr 2023
EGUsphere
Copernicus Publications, EGU23-5635 10.5194/egusphere-egu23-5635 - Javed, R.A., Houben, T., Kalbacher, T., Attinger, S. (2023):
Investigating the spectral analysis of groundwater level fluctuations in a numerical model of the upper Danube catchment in Germany
EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 24–28 Apr 2023
EGUsphere
Copernicus Publications, EGU23-10001 10.5194/egusphere-egu23-10001 - Pujades, E., Kumar, R., Houben, T., Jing, M., Rakovec, O.R., Kalbacher, T., Attinger, S. (2023):
Towards the construction of representative regional hydro(geo)logical numerical models: Modelling the Upper Danube basin as a starting point
Front. Earth Sci. 11 , art. 1061420 10.3389/feart.2023.1061420
2022 (1)
- Houben, T., Pujades, E., Kalbacher, T., Dietrich, P., Attinger, S. (2022):
From dynamic groundwater level measurements to regional aquifer parameters – Assessing the power of spectral analysis
Water Resour. Res. 58 (5), e2021WR031289 10.1029/2021WR031289
Before 2022
- Klitzsch, N., Houben, T., Brunner, M., Kleinow, R., 2014: Geophysical prospection of siderite concretions in sediments – a feasibility study. Applied Geophysics and Geothermal Energy, E.ON Energy Research Center, RWTH Aachen University
Talks
- Spectral analysis of groundwater level time series reveals hydrogeological parameters. Houben, T., Di-Dato, M., Siebert, C., Kalbacher, T., Fischer, T., Attinger, S. EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna.
- Spektralanalyse von Grundwasserganglinien zur Ermittlung von hydrogeologischen Parametern. Houben, T., March 2023, Digital Water Institute - Impuls.
- Using machine learning to spatially estimate soil moisture in an agricultural field., Boog, J., Ebeling, P., Houben, T., Khurana, S., Schmid, J., Schmidt, L.. 5th Data Science Symposium 2021, Helmholtz-Zentrum für Ozeanforschung Kiel, GEOMAR
- From dynamic groundwater head measurements to regional aquifer parameters., Houben, T., Kalbacher, T., Pujades, E., Dietrich, P., Attinger, S.. December 2019. AGU Fall Meeting 2019. San Francisco. Presentation (9.8 MB)
- When does model complexity pay off? A case study for groundwater modelling., Houben, T., de Rooij, G., Attinger, S., Kalbacher, T., Dietrich, P., October 2018. TERENO International Conference 2018. Berlin.
Posters
- Using GNN for automated quality control of environmental sensor data, Elżbieta Lasota, Timo Houben, Julius Polz, Christian Chwala, Lennart Schmidt, David Schäfer, Jan Bumberger, UFZ ModMonDay 2023, Leipzig.
- Modelling Groundwater Travel Time Distributions in the Hainich CZE. Timo Houben, Tino Rödiger, Sabine Attinger and Falk Hesse. 28th FH-DGGV Conference, March 2022, Jena.
FH-DGGV_22_TTD
- Estimating hydraulic response times of aquifers in southern Germany. Timo Houben, Mariaines Di Dato, Rohini Kumar, Sabine Attinger, iPoster AGU_21_SpA at AGU Fall Meeting 2021.
- Machine learning based spatio-temporal interpolation of soil moisture in an agricultural catchment. Swamini Khurana, Timo Houben, Pia Ebeling, Julia Schmid, Lennart Schmidt, Mohit Anand, Johannes Boog, iPoster AGU_21_ML at AGU Fall Meeting 2021.
- Inferring regional aquifer parameters by spectral analysis of groundwater head fluctuations - A feasibility study. Timo Houben, Estanislao Pujades, Mariaines Di Dato, Rohini Kumar, Sabine Attinger. iPoster AGU_20 at AGU Fall Meting 2020. Online Conference.
- Regional aquifer parameters by spectral analysis of groundwater head fluctuations – a synthetic study. Houben, T., Kalbacher, T., Dietrich and S. Attinger. EGU General Assembly 2019. Vienna. EGU_19 (5.4 MB)
Reviewer
- for Water Resources Research (WRR)
Internal Activities
- Machine Learning Café. Chair: Timo Houben, Co-Chair: Lennart Schmidt, Swamini Khurana. You are new to machine learning and need an overview? Or you just want to talk about your challenges in your studies in an informal setting? Grab a coffee and visit us in Building 7.1, room 301 on Thursdays from 4:30 p.m. Be up to date and have a look at our GitLab-Repo. Looking forward to study with you!
- PhD-Team Data Science. Chair: Swamini Khurana, Co-Chair: Timo Houben. You are doing your PhD at UFZ and are interested in data science? Come and join us! Further info right here.
- DocDays2018. Head of organization team, moderation and care during the event.
Teaching
Geoecological Field Course, 2019, University of Potsdam
- Hydrochemistry: Theory and regional setting of groundwater and surface water bodies in the vicinity of the research station in Gülpe, groundwater and surface water sampling, evaluation of chemical analysis of water samples
- Climatology: Theory of terrain climatology with focus on the Havel meadow as well as measurement systems at the climate stations, manual measurement of climatic parameters, data visualization and analysis